To: Jim Bishop who wrote (10287 ) 9/23/1999 8:55:00 PM From: Link Lady Respond to of 150070
this was in my email. from analystgroup.com Daily Market Review * The bad news is that the market is still going down as we anticipated, the good news is that September is going to end in one week. Let's pray for golden October... Weeks ago, Mr. Greenspan's stock market model showed blue-chip stocks are overvalued 40%, oops, the Dow has dropped 9% since then. Now, Comments made by Microsoft's President left many traders scratching their heads today - Steve Ballmer called the valuation of many technology stocks, including Microsoft, "absurd" and added a cynical, "I used to believe in the theory of perfect markets , but I no longer believe that." Well, Mr. Greenspan did not even use "absurd" to describe the valuation of the market. Shhhhh.. .If you listen very carefully, you can hear the anguished wail of traders across the land who watched a ho-hum session turn into a serious wreck in the last hour of the day. Major selling kicked in around 3:00 pm ET as technology stocks bore the brunt of the sell-off. What exactly sparked the slide is the source of some debate, but we believe continued weakness in the dollar, bearish comments by top management at Microsoft, and the testing of some key technical support levels. As a result, the Dow fell 1.95% or 205.48 points to close at 10,318.59. The Nasdaq Composite Index lost a whopping 3.79% or 108.33 points to close at 2749.83. Losses at the Standard and Poor's 500 Index were 2.3% or 30.10 points to 1280.41. Grossly undervalued small ones were down, but much less than the large ones. The Russell 2000 Index of small-cap stocks fell 1.71% or 7.32 points to 420.21 while the MicroCap 1000 Index closed down 1.62% or 18.38 points to 1117.73. * Traders noted that several indices flunked their technical tests today -the S&P 500 Index fell below 1,300 which was cited as a crucial psychological level while the Dow closed below its 200-day moving average at 10,318.6. As for the Nasdaq Composite, its 107.8 point loss translates into the equivalent of a 403.6 point loss for the Dow. * The Labor Department reported US initial jobless claims for the week of September 18 declined to 272,000 from last week's 289,000 filings, which was upwardly revised. The consensus anticipated first-time unemployment filers would increase to 290,000 claims. * The drop in the equity market sparked a flight to safety as investors deftly shifted assets out of equities and into the bond market. Traders also said feelings that the Fed will raise rates in October are fading a bit which opened the door to the rally and brought some short-covering. The 30-year Treasury surged 1 7/32 to 101 20/32, lowering the yield to 6.04%.